A29687:430
The crown & glory of Christianity, or, Holiness, the only way to happiness discovered…The crovvn & glory of Christianity, or, Holiness, the only way to happiness discovered…
The crown & glory of Christianity, or, Holiness, the only way to happiness discovered in LVIII sermons from Heb. 12. 14, where you have the necessity, excellency, rarity, beauty and glory of holiness set forth, with the resolution of many weighty questions and cases, also motives and means to perfect holiness : with many other things of very high and great importance to all the sons and daughters of men, that had rather be blessed then cursed, saved then damned / by Thomas Brooks ...The crovvn & glory of Christianity, or, Holiness, the only way to happiness discovered in LVIII sermons from Heb. 12. 14, where you have the necessity, excellency, rarity, beauty and glory of holiness set forth, with the resolution of many weighty questions and cases, also motives and means to perfect holiness : with many other things of very high and great importance to all the sons and daughters of men, that had rather be blessed then cursed, saved then damned / by Thomas Brooks ...
London: printed for H. Crips, 1662
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Ah friends, it is a dangerous thing to make repentance,1 which should be the practice of all your days, to be the task of old Age. Doth not common experience tell us, that the longer the Ship leaketh, the harder it is to be emptied; and that the longer the house goes to decay, the worse it is to repair; and that the further the nail is driven, the harder it will be to get out? and so certainly the longer any man defers his repentance, the more difficult it will be for him to repent; his heart will every day grow more and more hard, & his will more and more perverse, and his judgement more and more corrupted, and his affections more and more disordered, and his conscience more and more benumbed or enraged, and his whole life more and more defiled and debauched. Friends, do not deceive your selves, old age is but a sad, a sandy, a tottering and sinking foundation for you to build your hopes and happiness upon; for you to build your everlasting condition, your eternal making or marring upon. Are the dog days of old age, are the trembling hands, the wrinkled face, the dazzled eyes, the stinking lungs, the fainting heart, the feeble knees, and the failing legs, are these a sacrifice worthy of God? is a body full of sores, aches, and diseases, and a soul full of sin, an offering becoming a God? surely no. O what madness, what wickedness is this, to serve Satan, your lusts, and this world with full dishes, and to put off God with scraps? to serve these in the flower, in the prime and primrose of you days, and to put off God with the dregs of old age? Certainly repentance is rather a work for youth then old age, it is a work rather for strength then weakness; and for health then sickness. O do not let Satan deceive you, do ⟨p. 238⟩not let your own hearts delude you, but fall upon the work of repentance presently, knowing, that as you have one day more to repent of, so you have one day less to repent in. What a piece of vanity is it, that while the Ship is sound, the tackling sure, the Pilot well, the Sailors strong, provisions laid in, and the wind favourable, that the Mariners and passengers should lie in the Rode, carding, drinking, dicing, dancing and idling! And when the Ship is leak, the Pilot sick, the mariners faint, provisions spent, and the winds boisterous, then to weigh Anchors, and hoist up sail, to make a voyage into a far Country!